IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajarec/v69y2025i4p744-765.html

Can Oil Windfalls Decrease Fiscal Accountability? Evidence From No‐Term‐Limit Regimes

Author

Listed:
  • Ohad Raveh

Abstract

We study the impact of oil windfalls on fiscal accountability, vis‐à‐vis the case of regimes with no term limits. A political economy model of oil windfalls, accountability and term limits indicates that term limit regimes distort the impact of windfalls on accountability, motivating a focus on regimes that impose no term limits. Employing a panel of US states with no term limits over the period 1963–2007, we show that oil windfalls trigger fiscal effects similar to those observed under binding term limits. Namely, taxes and spending increase, lowering state growth in a robust and economically meaningful magnitude, yet only when a Democrat is in office. We show that these patterns hold over the course of several years. Our results shed light on the potential adverse effects of oil windfalls in advanced democracies, as well as more generally on the disciplining effect of elections.

Suggested Citation

  • Ohad Raveh, 2025. "Can Oil Windfalls Decrease Fiscal Accountability? Evidence From No‐Term‐Limit Regimes," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 69(4), pages 744-765, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajarec:v:69:y:2025:i:4:p:744-765
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8489.70048
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8489.70048
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8489.70048?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David M. Primo & James M. Snyder, Jr., 2010. "Party Strength, the Personal Vote, and Government Spending," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 354-370, April.
    2. Òscar Jordà, 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 161-182, March.
    3. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2009. "The Origins of State Capacity: Property Rights, Taxation, and Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1218-1244, September.
    4. Ohad Raveh, 2013. "Dutch Disease, factor mobility, and the Alberta Effect: the case of federations," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(4), pages 1317-1350, November.
    5. Reed, W. Robert, 2006. "Democrats, republicans, and taxes: Evidence that political parties matter," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 725-750, May.
    6. Paula S. Kearns, 1994. "State budget periodicity: An analysis of the determinants and the effect on state spending," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 331-362.
    7. Raveh, Ohad & Tsur, Yacov, 2023. "Can resource windfalls reduce corruption? The role of term limits," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    8. Benjamin Smith, 2004. "Oil Wealth and Regime Survival in the Developing World, 1960–1999," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(2), pages 232-246, April.
    9. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2011. "Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 366-420, June.
    10. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    11. Francesco Caselli & Andrea Tesei, 2016. "Resource Windfalls, Political Regimes, and Political Stability," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(3), pages 573-590, July.
    12. Fidel Perez-Sebastian & Ohad Raveh, 2019. "Federal tax policies, congressional voting and natural resources," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1112-1164, August.
    13. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 1995. "Does Electoral Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence from Gubernatorial Term Limits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 769-798.
    14. Alex Armand & Alexander Coutts & Pedro C. Vicente & Inês Vilela, 2020. "Does Information Break the Political Resource Curse? Experimental Evidence from Mozambique," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(11), pages 3431-3453, November.
    15. Markus Brückner & Antonio Ciccone & Andrea Tesei, 2012. "Oil Price Shocks, Income, and Democracy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 389-399, May.
    16. Smart, Michael & Sturm, Daniel M., 2013. "Term limits and electoral accountability," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 93-102.
    17. Raveh, Ohad & Tsur, Yacov, 2020. "Resource windfalls and public debt: A political economy perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    18. Anthony J. Venables, 2016. "Using Natural Resources for Development: Why Has It Proven So Difficult?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 161-184, Winter.
    19. John A. List & Daniel M. Sturm, 2006. "How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1249-1281.
    20. John Mikesell, 1978. "Election periods and state tax policy cycles," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 99-106, January.
    21. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2018. "Political economy of dynamic resource wars," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 765-782.
    22. George A. Krause & David E. Lewis & James W. Douglas, 2013. "Politics Can Limit Policy Opportunism in Fiscal Institutions: Evidence from Official General Fund Revenue Forecasts in the American States," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(2), pages 271-295, March.
    23. John Ferejohn, 1986. "Incumbent performance and electoral control," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 5-25, January.
    24. Bitoto, Fabrice Ewolo & Nkoa Ongo, Emmanuel Bruno, 2024. "Natural resource rents and public spending on education in Africa: Does women's political empowerment matter?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    25. Bhattacharyya, Sambit & Hodler, Roland, 2010. "Natural resources, democracy and corruption," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 608-621, May.
    26. Matsusaka, John G, 1995. "Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Last 30 Years," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 587-623, June.
    27. James, Alexander, 2017. "Natural resources and education outcomes in the United States," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 150-164.
    28. Haber, Stephen & Menaldo, Victor, 2011. "Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the Resource Curse," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(1), pages 1-26, February.
    29. Michael A. Nelson, 2000. "Electoral Cycles and the Politics of State Tax Policy," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(6), pages 540-560, November.
    30. Robert Barro, 1973. "The control of politicians: An economic model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    31. Perez-Sebastian, Fidel & Raveh, Ohad & Reingewertz, Yaniv, 2019. "Heterogeneous vertical tax externalities and macroeconomic effects of federal tax changes: The role of fiscal advantage," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 85-110.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Raveh, Ohad & Tsur, Yacov, 2023. "Can resource windfalls reduce corruption? The role of term limits," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    2. Ikan, Lotem & Lagziel, David & Raveh, Ohad, 2025. "Resource windfalls, connectivity, and political polarization," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    3. Raveh, Ohad & Tsur, Yacov, 2020. "Resource windfalls and public debt: A political economy perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    4. Ohad Raveh & Yacov Tsur, 2018. "Resource Windfalls and Public Debt: The Role of Political Myopia," OxCarre Working Papers 205, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    5. Raveh, Ohad & Tsur, Yacov, 2020. "Reelection, growth and public debt," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Minchuk, Yizhaq & Raveh, Ohad, 2025. "Can term limits reduce political sabotage? Evidence from negative campaigning in gubernatorial races," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Fidel Perez-Sebastian & Ohad Raveh & Frederick van der Ploeg, 2025. "Natural Resources, Technology Improvements, and Growth," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 88(8), pages 2157-2199, August.
    8. Ohad Raveh & Yacov Tsur, 2017. "Political Myopia, Public Debt," OxCarre Working Papers 200, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    9. Mariana Lopes da Fonseca, 2016. "Candid Lame Ducks," CESifo Working Paper Series 5773, CESifo.
    10. Fidel Perez-Sebastian & Ohad Raveh, 2019. "Federal tax policies, congressional voting and natural resources," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1112-1164, August.
    11. Tsur, Yacov, 2022. "Political tenure, term limits and corruption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    12. Per G. Fredriksson & Le Wang & Patrick L Warren, 2013. "Party Politics, Governors, and Economic Policy," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(1), pages 106-126, July.
    13. S. Borağan Aruoba & Allan Drazen & Razvan Vlaicu, 2019. "A Structural Model Of Electoral Accountability," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(2), pages 517-545, May.
    14. Dalle Nogare, Chiara & Kauder, Björn, 2017. "Term limits for mayors and intergovernmental grants: Evidence from Italian cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-11.
    15. Raveh, Ohad & Perez-Sebastian, Fidel & van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2024. "Are Technology Improvements Contractionary? The Role of Natural Resources," MPRA Paper 120355, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Yakovlev, Pavel A. & Tosun, Mehmet S. & Lewis, William P., 2018. "The Fiscal Consequences of State Legislative Term Limits," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 48(3), January.
    17. Gabriel Leon, 2013. "Bad Apples: Political Paralysis and the Quality of Politicians," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 15(3), pages 433-447, June.
    18. Ohad Raveh, 2020. "Monetary Policy, Natural Resources, and Federal Redistribution," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 75(3), pages 585-613, March.
    19. Ujhelyi, Gergely, 2014. "Civil service reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 15-25.
    20. David Lagziel & Ehud Lehrer & Ohad Raveh, 2026. "Resource windfalls and political sabotage: Evidence from 5.2 million political ads," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 108(2), pages 630-664, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajarec:v:69:y:2025:i:4:p:744-765. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaresea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.